


send laguardia a fruit basket

by Murf1307



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Canon Era, First Meeting, Historically-Accurate LGBT Slang, M/M, Making Out, pinball
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-21
Updated: 2017-07-21
Packaged: 2018-12-04 22:25:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11564565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Murf1307/pseuds/Murf1307
Summary: Armando spends a lot of time down in the Village.  One day, in the basement of a porno theater, hunched over a pinball machine, he meets someone new.





	send laguardia a fruit basket

**Author's Note:**

> Fiorello LaGuardia is the mayor of New York who made pinball illegal; the title is a reference to that.

The blond boy bent over the pinball machine in the corner is, unfortunately, exactly Armando's type. Since he got out of the boarding school he's been keeping a low profile, staying in the Village and whatnot. He's got a job as a cab driver, and the pay's all right, so he thinks he's got it pretty good.

He weighs his odds, glancing at the boy -- a little younger than him, maybe, but Armando's only nineteen himself. He's got blond hair, but he dresses an awful lot like James Dean. Armando's never seen him around here before.

 _Here_ is the basement of a porno theater on Bleecker Street, in a shoebox of a room containing just one lightbulb overhead and the lights on the backglass of the machine itself tossing red and blue shadows over the boy's face. Armando can hear tonight's show upstairs -- it's gay porn tonight, which is another point in the boy's favor.

He decides to chance it -- he's got a pocket full of nickels, and a few hours to kill, so he'll just see what happens.

"You're pretty good," he says to the boy.

He tenses a little. "Yeah," he says, his voice a pretty kind of low. "You want the machine?"

"Nah, I'm good. I can watch for a little."

The boy keeps playing, and Armando watches his hands. He really is good; Armando hadn't just been trying to flirt.

After a little while, the boy speaks up. "If you're looking for a hustler, I don't do that shit."

Armando can't help the laugh that escapes him. "Do you get solicited a lot, around here?" He's a pretty boy, and Armando wouldn't be surprised if he does.

"Yeah," the boy says, and there's tension in every line of his body. "But I don't fuck or suck dick for money."

"Well, neither do I," Armando says mildly. "You new? Haven't seen you around before."

"Yeah," the boy says. He twists, between pinballs, and eyes Armando like he's waiting for a catch. "You ask a lotta questions."

Armando nods. "Just trying to make conversation."

He knows, though, what the boy means: knowing too much about anyone in this part of town is dangerous, and telling people about yourself can make things even worse. So he quiets, and just watches him play instead.

Eventually, he shifts closer, to get a better look at the board and the way the balls are moving. It helps him, at least, to stop staring so much at the boy's white, long-fingered hands on the flipper switches. They're good hands, he thinks, though he shouldn't. He doesn't say it out loud, at least. He's not playing this safe at all, but technically, Armando knows he doesn't need to. He's special that way, and he's got the scientific papers to prove it.

"You got a name, pretty boy?" he asks, eventually.

The boy looks up at him and his bitter blue eyes say a lot. "Yeah. Summers."

"All right, Summers. My friends call me Darwin."

Summers looks at him a little funny, but he tries not to act like he's noticed. Armando knows that what he's doing isn't exactly safe, but he doesn't want to pretend about this. For once, he wants to take a chance.

"I wanna see if I can beat your high score," Armando says, shrugging one shoulder. "I think I could."

"Oh yeah? I doubt it." Summers steps back. "Give it a shot."

Armando laughs a little and takes to the machine. He's pretty good, but his score doesn't match Summers' when he runs out of balls on his first nickel. "Well, that's gonna take some practice, I think."

Summers twitches out the barest hint of a smile, and Armando finds he likes that a lot more than maybe he should. Summers is cultivated danger -- he moves a little like a criminal, at the very least dresses like Brando and Dean, and Armando sort of likes that, too.

"Hey, if you don't have anything better to do," Armando says, after a minute, "You wanna get out of here?"

He hopes Summers catches his drift.

Summers looks at him like he doesn't, not quite. "...You don't really seem like the fairy type."

Armando shrugs. "You're textbook trade, but nobody's perfect." He takes a little step back to give Summers some space. "But if you want to get out of here, I'm good for that."

"...I guess I don't have anything better to do," Summers admits, after a moment. "So yeah, sure."

"Then let's go, if you want to."

Instead, Summers reaches out -- because they're still within arm's reach of each other -- and, with an almost stonily determined expression, pulls Armando toward him by the collar of his shirt.

The kiss is only a little bit of a surprise, and instinct has Armando curling his hand around Summers' wrist before he's even really thinking about it. He kisses back, his other hand curling into the other boy's hair. It feels like it's been ages since he's let himself do something like this, and it feels good.

Summers turns them around and walks Armando back until Armando's rear end is pressed against the pinball machine. It's kind of funny, really, how fast Summers has turned this around, but Armando figures it's probably not something Summers does often.

He doesn't realize something is wrong until Summers drops to his knees. It isn't like that _doesn't_ make a pretty picture -- because _damn_ , it does -- but the look in Summers' eyes is all wrong.

Armando frowns, his hand reaching out to cup Summers' face, to try and get a good look at him. Summers, meanwhile, is fumbling with Armando's belt, and freezes up tight when he's touched, which only makes Armando _surer_ that this really isn't a good idea.

"Hey, hotshot," he says, the endearment slipping out of his mouth without thinking about it, "I don't put out on the first date."

It's a tease, that's all, because he doesn't know how else to draw attention to the fact that something about this has gone wrong, without up and saying it has. Because he's _interested_ in Summers, wants to maybe see him again, or get to know him a little better.

And that means, for better or worse, he's gotta look out for him a little.

Summers frowns up at him, like he's trying to figure out how he misread the situation.

"Now, I like you," Armando offers, "And I really liked having your tongue in my mouth, but I don't know if anything besides that is a good idea."

"You don't know me," Summers says. "Why should you care?"

"Don't know," he says, shrugging. "Just do. Now, you gonna get back up here or not?"

Summers stands, one hand sliding up Armando's thigh, then his abs, then his chest. "You talk a lot."

Armando knows what that means; it means _People don't talk about this_ , and _You probably shouldn't say anything_ , and _what the hell do you want?_

And really, what Armando wants right now, with Summers back in his space, and the hot line of his touch, is to maybe work his way up to sex with this beautiful, beautiful boy. But he's not gonna say so just yet.

Instead, he slides his own hand into Summers' back pocket, and pulls him in for a kiss.

 

**Author's Note:**

> "Trade" at the time meant any "straight"-identifying man who was receptive to a gay man's advances, and "fairy" meant a gay man who acted in a feminine way. "Hustler" was a common slang for a male full-service sex worker. 
> 
> Now you know a few more things than you probably needed to know about the Village in the 60s and 70s. Congratulations.


End file.
